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Today is the Blog Action Day 2008. The theme of the year is “Poverty”. For that, I joined Kiva and made a few loans.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

Kiva helps people to fish rather than giving them the fish. The loaner do NOT get any interest but the biggest profit is that you changed a life by micro-lending.

I joined Kiva since 2007 but never been an active loaner before Oct 2008. Shame on me!

Blog Action Day suggested that bloggers donate their earning of the day for charity. I made 4 Kiva loans USD$25 each. Check out my lender page.

(Continued…)

Last week, I went to Genting Highland with my friends from my hometown for a short holiday. It was only 2 days and 1 night trip. RM73 per person, inclusive of traveling and hotel room expenses, plus 1 cheap buffet dinner.

We were there to relax ourselves (though I have been too relaxed ). It was also my first time playing in the casino. I was not lucky and brave enough to play the games. I was more comfortable playing slowly with the slot machine, 1 credit by 1 credit.

51st Merdeka Day

Happy belated birthday to Malaysia! 31st August 2008 was the 51st Independence Day of Malaysia!

Compared to last year, the Malaysia blogsphere is quite dull about the 51st National Day of Malaysia. Why was that? Everyone was busy with own stuff?

(Continued…)

After the success of Malaysian Chinese Blog Award 2007 in last year, the crew is now preparing for the Malaysian Chinese Blog Award 2008. They have started accepting nominations on August 4th, 2008 and it will be closed at September 30th, 2008.

The Malaysian Chinese Blog Award 2008 has more categories than last year, that is 21 different blog categories. Your blog probably already fits in one of them.

Malaysian? Blog in Chinese? Click here to register!

My two cents

It is glad to see that the Chinese Blog Award is still going on for the 2nd year. When am I going to have a Chinese blog? Soon.

Where is the Malaysians English Blog Award, or better, Malaysians Blog Award? Nobody plans to do that?

[hat tip: Duller]

Beijing 2008 Olympics Games is over. I had a great time sitting in front TV most of the time and watching the performances of world’s greatest athletes, hadn’t you? For Malaysians, the biggest item of interest in the 2008 Olympic Games was our badminton team.

But you probably never knew the other Olympics-related matters that Malaysians are interested in. With the help of Google Insights for Search Malaysia, here is the roundup of the Malaysian Olympics-related search habits:

1. The Beijing 2008 Olympics was twice as popular with Malaysians as the 2004 Athens Games.
2. [Badminton] takes the lead in Malaysian searches over [gymnastics], [swimming], [diving] and even [football] largely due to the silver medal win of Lee Chong Wei in badminton singles. No surprises there!
3. [Lee Chong Wei] also tops the athlete searches from the start of the Olympics and surges ahead of other famous Olympians like [Michael Phelps], [Usain Bolt], [Rafael Nadal] and [Liu Xiang].
4. There was also little doubt whose side Malaysians were on during [Chong Wei]’s eventual defeat to China’s [Lin Dan] for the badminton singles final.
5. Movie-loving Malaysians were also tuning-into the Olympics rather than checking out the latest movies with [Olympics] getting more hits than both [gsc] or [tgv], abbreviations for cinema chains Golden Screen Cinemas and Tanjong Golden Village, combined.
6. Despite the by-election fever heating up for [Anwar Ibrahim], Malaysians were still upbeat in their search for [Olympics] news and material. The Malaysians’ search for [badminton] tipped the scale on 17 Aug. That was the day the men’s badminton singles finals between Lee Chong Wei and Li Dan was held.
7. Interestingly, searches for the [Olympics opening ceremony] and [Olympics closing ceremony] follow the same trends, with the opening ceremony taking a slight lead. With last night’s fireworks-ridden closing ceremony featuring appearances by Jackie Chan and David Beckham, among others, it’s no surprise that viewers were just as excited to see it!
8. It seems like most KL-ites were hot on the trail of the Olympics by topping the other States in Malaysia on online search of the [Beijing Olympics] followed closely by Selangor and Pahang.

Google Insights for Search is a new tool for advertisers, marketers, and Internet users who are interested in finding out what’s on top of Malaysians’ minds and looking to compare search patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.

[Hat tip: Jana Ponnudurai]

Beijing 2008 Olympics is not only the stage for athletes to compete each others but also the stage for China to show off its high technologies.

• LED were installed across the 20,000-square-meter National Station (aka Bird’s Nest) for multimedia effects.
  The big display at the center of the ground is made possible by an LED screen measures 147 meters long and 22 meters wide that embedded 44,000 colorful LED beads.
• For the first time ever in Olympic openings, Beijing used a monitoring system to program control of more than 18,000 performers through their identification codes. The “ShenZhou 4000″ control system used during space missions was used in the control center of the opening ceremony.
• Digital ignition control system minimized the time difference of the firework display to a few milliseconds at more than 30 locations across Beijing. 40,000 shots, none has falter.
• For the first time, Olympics games is being produced entirely in high-definition (HD).
• RFID (radio frequency identification technology) is embedded in tickets and official accreditation passes.
• The Commentator Information System will be made available to broadcasters in their country of operation, instead of at the Olympic venues. The commentators can access real-time results and data feeds, as if they were onsite.
• Journalists will for the first time be able to navigate the Olympics INFO2008 system from their own laptop via a wireless network.
• Beijing shots weather rockets to halt rain cloud from reaching Bird’s Nest at the night of Beijing 2008 Olympics ceremony.

Are you amazed by the technologies used at Beijing 2008 Olympics?